"We're in a race," Tucker panted. "I'm slowing you down."
"Amaya's cooked up something to slow them down," Raven replied.
"If it works," the second woman said.
They entered a gorge at the upper end of the women's valley. The defile wasn't much more than a slit in a huge rock that looked like it had been split asunder, but it was a door leading to the desert east of Erehwon. Narrow as a corridor in places, the cleft's floor was sand and its lower reaches stained dark where past floodwaters had swirled through. Only a wedge of sky with a scattering of stars, hundreds of feet above, shed any light. Ethan and Raven had used the passageway to slip away before and now were using it again, but this time pursuit was only a mile behind.
"What will they do if they catch us?" Tucker asked, limping along.
"I've been through this before," Ethan said. "We get away, or we kill ourselves. Surrendering is not an option."
A fall of rock had almost plugged the slit at its midway point with a wall of boulders difficult to climb over. Floodwaters had carved a low sandy tunnel under the rocks that Raven and Ethan had earlier crawled through.
"This is the place I told you about," Raven said to Amaya.
The other woman nodded. She stooped to dig in her pack as they paused to catch their breath. They could hear the calls of pursuit behind them, like the baying of hounds.
"Why are we stopping?" Daniel asked. "We have to move."
"Raven and I think we might slow them down with this," Amaya said. She took out a leather skin shaped roughly like a sphere and slightly smaller than a basketball. Cord and a coating of hardened fat helped seal the outside.
"What the devil is that?"
"It's a bomb." She announced it as proudly as she would a baby.
The men looked at her in confusion.
"I got the idea when we saw the stables. If we set this off at the right moment it should block this gorge and scare hell out of them too. It will buy us time."
"You're serious, aren't you?" said Tucker.
"Remember the sulfur spring? That was one ingredient of gunpowder. Have you ever made it?"
"Not in the last couple of days."
"It's simple, really. All you need is sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate in the right proportions."
"Charcoal?" Tucker asked.
"From the fires. Nitrate from the urine deposits in the stables. Calcium nitrate, actually, which works in a pinch." She regarded her invention. "Maybe."
"Tomorrow she splits the atom," Daniel said. "How do we use it?"
"In the tunnel. The explosion should collapse it, and maybe jar more rock loose besides. I'll wait to light it."
"No," said Tucker quickly. "I'll do it."
"It's my idea, Tucker. My risk."
He shook his head. "I'm the slowest, with this bum ankle, and the strongest. They'll hesitate with me." Tucker looked up at the sky, a slim silver band high above. "This is the pass to make a stand, I think. Like Daniel's Spartans."
"What?"
He sounded excited. "The Greeks and the Persians! Remember, Daniel?"
"Tucker, you're not a damned Spartan."
"How do I know if I've never tried?"
"You have no training!"
He looked back down the defile. "It's the perfect place, the perfect time, and the perfect person."
Daniel looked at him worriedly.
"I'll back them up a bit, light the explosive, and run," Tucker reassured. "Or at least hobble. With any luck they'll decide we're not worth chasing."
There wasn't time for argument. "All right. Light it and crawl like hell. We'll be waiting on the other side."
"No, don't wait! Make all the distance you can! I'll catch up!"
"He's right," Ethan said, dropping to the sand to wriggle through. "We can't risk any delay."
Raven went next and Amaya ducked to follow.
Daniel put his hands on his friend's shoulders. "You be sure to come, promise?"
"I've got to see the rest of Australia." He grinned.
Amaya was through and the others were calling. Daniel hesitated a moment more and then fell on his belly to crawl, his head and back bumping against the overhanging rock. Ethan helped drag him out the other side.
"Okay, he's buying us time," Daniel said. "Let's run like hell."
"They're going to tear him to pieces if he doesn't get through that hole," Ethan said soberly.
"He knows that," Daniel said. "If his courage is going to mean anything, we have to get away."
The canyon widened slightly on the other side of the blockage and they trotted down it toward the eastern opening that showed a gray horizon. There was already a barely detectable blush in the sky. Dawn was coming.
The bomb would have to work.
The canyon walls were so steep that it would be difficult to get around him, Tucker was betting. It might take hours to circle the enclosing rocks. Precious minutes, at least. If he could hold Rugard's men here for a while, the others would have a chance.
He studied Amaya's bomb. A fuse extended from one end, and tied to it, wrapped in leaves, were two of their remaining matches. Could it really choke off the canyon? He couldn't rely on that alone. Rugard's men were already in the defile, pushing forward cautiously and clumsily by torchlight, the reflections throwing shadows well ahead of the actual pursuit.
"Let's give you something to think about," Tucker growled. He set down the explosive, picked up the spear he'd been using as a cane, and crouched at a bend of the canyon, waiting.
They came around the curve arrogant and angry, and he charged them like a cornered bear. Surprise was complete. His initial thrust only glanced off the first man, who was twisting desperately out of the way, but the wound was enough to raise a howl and throw the convicts into confusion. Their quarry had turned! The front rank stumbled back, some tripping in their haste to get away from Tucker's whirling staff.
A braver criminal plunged ahead with his own spear and Tucker knocked it aside. The man came at him again. Tucker parried, seized his opponent's shaft, and jerked forward with the glad ferocity of instinctive combat. The convict stumbled, dropped to his knees, and lost his weapon as Tucker wrenched, his own ankle pain forgotten. The man was trying to retreat on his hands and knees when Tucker speared him. The convict screamed, pinioned through the leg, and then was jerked to safety by his friends, the shaft trailing out of his thigh. Rugard's men fell back, relaying the news of danger.
Tucker got up, breathing heavily, his ankle even worse, and looked at the retreating torchlight with satisfaction. "Yeah, back off, you bastards," he muttered. Then he studied the cliff wall and boosted himself gingerly a short distance up it, bracing himself precariously.
"You keep away from us, Rugard!" he yelled, his voice echoing. "Come up here and we'll kill you all!" No one answered him. He dropped back down to the sand and waited, considering the bomb again.
He could hear the pursuers arguing, picking up the thread of Rugard's rasping, impatient voice. Then the convicts fell ominously silent for a while. Finally someone was being pushed forward, scuffling through the sand. "Get your damn hand off me!" There was a pause and then a familiar voice called out down the canyon. "Tucker, is that you? Listen, we have to talk!"
It was Ico.
"I don't talk to the morally impaired!" Tucker shouted back.
"Come on man, listen to me. We still need each other. We can still work together! Daniel wouldn't listen, Tucker. I'll bet he didn't even tell you he can't get you back. Not without me!"